MSI 890FXA GD70 Motherboard review

The MSI bios configuration is very capable, offering a plethora of automatic overclocking and core unlocking capabilities. CPU Voltage can be adjusted by altering voltage detection pins (VDD) or by manual override.

MSI allow for up to six configurations to be saved as overclocking profiles in a safe area of the BIOS rom. This means if you lose stability and can't remember the previous settings you can simply (and safely) recall them by simply selecting the previously saved setting.

Here are some bios screens to give you an indication of the diversity on offer. It is quite rather similar to the 790FX bios.

We disabled features such as Cool ‘n' Quiet and CPU C1E power states. For safety reasons we kept voltage to 1.450v maximum. Our 1090T Phenom II is currently being used in another system for reviews so we reverted to our 965 Black Edition which is still relevant as they are a widely used enthusiast processor.

The results for the three motherboards on test were close. The Black Edition managed to hit 4ghz with both Gigabyte and MSI boards but fell 100mhz short of this with the AsRock board.

The systems were built from scratch and all drivers, firmwares and software was updated – all our results are gathered from five individual runs to analyze and remove any possible result abnormalities. We try to mix and match games between reviews to keep it interesting for regular readers – no one wants to see the same four or five games benchmarked every week.

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